Embrace the Darkness
by Nephthys Moon
Summary: The Exile. The Fallen. The Soldier. The Redeemed. One for vengeance. One for justice. One for penance. One for truth. All would find their paths. But in the end, will all be lost to darkness?
1. Part I Chapter 1

**Part I**  
**Chapter 1**

The battle outside her transparisteel window was a diversion. She knew that, but she still put her full attention on it as they approached the ship that Revan had claimed as his flagship. Until they docked with it, her orders were to keep her attention as far away from it as possible. Only when it was absolutely necessary should she risk alerting Revan to her presence. The Republic's Hope was grateful – she had no desire to be a part of this particular battle. Arrogant her Masters claimed she was, and arrogant she may well be, but she was not so foolish to think she could best Revan in a duel. That was better left to the Masters and more experienced Jedi on the mission. She knew she was here for her skill at Battle Meditation, not for her combat abilities.

The hull of Revan's flagship loomed up, and the faded, scratched lettering scrolled past: _Varojan_. She briefly wondered what the word meant. The smaller vessel shuddered as it docked, and Master Najash came in, a petite Twi'lek with pale blue skin.

"Bastila, you know what you are to do. Stay here and use your Battle Meditation to help us defeat Revan here, on his ship, so that we can end this war before it goes any further," Najash said.

Bastila nodded. She had no intentions of leaving the relative safety of the ship. Najash left, and Bastila was free to engage her not inconsiderable talents at Battle Meditation. She couldn't say how long she'd been in the small room alone; she tended to lose herself in her Battle Meditation, time had no meeting to her. She was surprised, therefore, to see a cloaked and masked figure step into the room – she should have sensed him, but he seemed to have cloaked himself from her in the Force.

"Hello, my pretty little stowaway. I have uses for you, but now is not the time to discuss them. Unfortunately, I have need for your ship. It seems that mine is about to be, shall we say, useless?"

Bastila lost her control of the threads of the Force upon which she had so desperately been concentrating at; focusing all her attention instead on the Dark Lord standing in her presence.

"You cannot win, Revan," she said, her voice betraying none of her fear.

"Yes, love, I expected you to say something of the sort. But you see," he said, as a massive wave rocked the ship, "we're both in a bit of a bind at the moment, so perhaps we can dispense with the pleasantries. Curse Malak for the fool he is, he's decided that now would be the opportune moment to betray me. Unless you'd like to have a Dark Lord without the Republic's best interests at heart, I suggest you aid me, and not him."

"The Republic's best interest at heart?" she echoed disdainfully. "Did you have our interests at heart when you destroyed worlds in your need for conquest?"

"Really, love, your song and dance is wasting precious time. I need your ship. With or without you on it. Come with me, aid me against Malak, and you'll live to see tomorrow. Otherwise, I'll remove you bodily and let you die with the others on this ship. It's really quite simple."

His words sunk in. Malak was the one firing on the ship, not the Republic. Malak was turning on Revan; Revan intended to confront Malak about his betrayal. She could assist him in this, and use the opportunity to bring Revan down, possibly ridding the Galaxy of the both of them. He watched her, she was not foolish enough to think otherwise.

"Your thoughts play out quite charmingly across your face, you know," he said conversationally, as though the ship was not rocking precariously beneath their feet. "I can assure you that you won't succeed, but you're more than welcome to try. By all means, join me and take your best shot."

His confidence would be his downfall, she decided quickly.

"Can you fly this ship?" she asked. He nodded. "Good. I will concentrate on getting us there in one piece and using my skills to make sure that he doesn't get any more shots on your ship while we are en route. That should buy us the time we need to surprise him. If the Force is on our side, he will never see the attack coming until the blade is in his back."

"I think I shall call you Viha," he said, and she thought that perhaps he was smiling behind his mask as he headed to the cockpit. Within moments they were flying out of the landing pad and towards Malak's ship, while she concentrated all her energies on making sure that the other Sith didn't know of their impending arrival while simultaneously misdirecting his fighters and volleys away from Revan's ship. From her position, the damage to the other ship didn't look too bad. His ship should be salvageable.

It didn't take them long to reach Malak's ship, and when they arrived, Revan came to her, lightsabers in hand, and she wondered if he would kill her now that she had served her purpose.

"Come, Viha, there is work to be done. Malak has one of my top generals on his ship, and she is bound to be imprisoned at the least. I need her alive." She stood and grabbed her double-bladed saber, preparing to back up the Sith in front of her, wondering as she did so what her Masters would say to this. She decided that the ends justified the means. There simply were some things the Code did not cover.

She and Revan raced along hallways, meeting no resistance, which surprised her; whatever rebellion Malak had planned, he clearly had not anticipated that his troops being more loyal to Revan than to himself. Revan clearly knew the ship well; within about fifteen minutes, they had found the brig, where sure enough, an old woman was being held in a Force Cage.

"Youngling, you should not be here," she said. "The whelp is already celebrating your demise aboard the _Varojan_."

"All the more reason he will not expect my presence here," Revan said with a trace of wry humor Bastila did not expect. But then, she admitted to herself, nothing about this man had been anything like what she had expected of him since he had commandeered her ship earlier this day.

"And who have you brought with you?" the old woman asked, as they released her from the cage. Her weapon had been foolishly left nearby, and she reached for it as one embracing a lover.

"Do not ask questions to which you already know the answer, Traya," Revan said, sounding annoyed. Traya laughed, a deep, throaty sound that sent chills down Bastila's spine. Whoever this Traya was, Bastila knew she did not want to meet her in armed combat. Her plans for taking down Revan were becoming seriously complicated merely by the presence of this unknown third. Nowhere, in any of the intelligence of Revan's armies, was there a mention of a Traya.

"And does this new ally have a name, or shall I make one for her?" Traya asked, a trace of venom in her voice. Bastila could read this tone easily enough. Traya was jealous. The sightless eyes that stared at her as though measuring her against an invisible standard found her lacking in some way, and Bastila bristled against the judgment.

"Viha, I believe, though if you find it unworthy, you are free to give her another," Revan said.

"I am not your ally," Bastila said, her own fury mounting at this exchange in which she seemed to have no part. They were speaking of her as though she were not even in the room, or as if she were a child, somehow incapable of understanding what was being said about her.

"And you will learn to be silent when you are in the presence of your betters until you have learned your place," Traya spat. "Consider that your first lesson, Viha. If you need reminding of it, I will show you ways in which the Force can be not an ally, but a weapon – one that can break the mind and the spirit."

Images assaulted Bastila, images too horrible to have names, and she felt a small crack in her mind, as though she had taken a step on the road to madness. She could not speak through the images, and she was grateful, suddenly, for Revan's voice.

"Traya, that is enough!" His voice was commanding. "I need Generals, not incompetent fools bent upon destruction and mad, to boot. Look at Malak and all he has wrought."

"If you insist," Traya said, her voice subservient and still managing to be disdainful, but the horrifying images stopped immediately, leaving Bastila gasping.

She dropped to her knees and Traya laughed, a deep cackle that unnerved the young woman even further.

"Look at her," Traya taunted. "This is what you claim to be a General? She is weak. Pathetic. You need strength and she offers you nothing except the chance to warm your bed. Do not think me so old and foolish that I do not know what you truly see in this pathetic excuse for a Jedi."

"You tread a thin line, Traya," Revan said, his voice through the vocabulator dangerously low. "She is the Republic's Hope. With her, we crush what little they have left. It is strategy. Nothing more. And we have more important things to deal with at the moment. Or perhaps you have forgotten the pressing matter of Malak?"

"Ah, yes," she said with a snide little smile. Bastila looked up from her knees, trying desperately to keep up with the conversation. "What shall we do about the whelp?"

"There's either the Academy or the Forge. Either's a risk. He'll turn on me again, someday soon, but if he sees he's failed today, he'll think twice about it," Revan said.

"If you send him to the Academy, where will you send her?" Traya asked, her snide tone replaced with one of practicality.

"The Forge it is, then. I can't trust him with the Fleet, obviously. He'd just muck things up, and I hate to kill him," he said. Bastila heard what sounded like – well it almost sounded like regret coming from the modified voice. Surely she must be mistaken.

She struggled to her feet. "He tried to kill you, and you're just – going to let him live?" she asked incredulous.

"It's the way of the Sith, love. If he hadn't tried, at some point, I would have thought less of him, to be sure." Revan laughed, an unholy sound through that mask of his. "All this means is that he's growing ambitious, and needs something better to do with his time than command one of my ships. Besides, I hate to kill prisoners."

"Oh, and I suppose you have all those Sith Assassins just for show?" she demanded hotly.

"Actually, their job is try to turn Jedi," he said. "They only kill the ones they can't turn. And I'll be sending my best man with Malak. Malak will think that Jaq is answering to him, but Jaq will know better – it's the best solution, really."

"So, what is this Forge?" Bastila asked, trying to glean as much information as she could.

"Oh, no, Princess, none of that, now," he said, teasingly. "Can't tell you all my secrets. Traya will train you up and perhaps, in time, I'll tell you all about the Forge, but for now, your only job is to learn how to be the best Sith you can – after we show Malak a thing or two."

"I suggest we get moving," Traya said drily, "before you mount her here in my prison cell. Not that I begrudge you a chance to slate you passions, Revan, but surely you can wait a little longer. There is work to do, after all."

As it happened, they were able to take Malak completely by surprise. He had seriously underestimated how loyal his crew was to Revan, and no one raised the alarm that the Dark Lord was on the ship. The team of three Sith – well, two Sith and one Jedi – were able to reach the chambers of the new Dark Lord (or so he thought), where he was indulging himself with a slave girl, without any interference.

Malak's shock at seeing Revan still alive gave them the upper hand, and the battle was short-lived. He was even more surprised that Revan wasn't going to kill him, but he glared daggers at Bastila. As he was led away by a team of Revan's loyal guards, bound for the Forge (wherever that may be), his parting words were for her.

"Someday, bitch, he'll grow tired of you, and when he does, it'll be my blade that detaches your head from your shoulders – and at his command. That's always been the way of it. Don't think you're special."

After he was taken away, Bastila tried to find a weakness in either of her companions, but wasn't much surprised when she found herself bound and placed in the Force Cage on her own ship that was meant to contain Revan and being taken back to the Varojan, where repairs were already underway.

While en route, Traya had stood outside her cage and looked her over appraisingly.

"He wants Generals, Viha. That's what I'll have to make you into. I won't lie to you, or call you pretty names to turn your head. He won't bother himself with training you himself – not at first. He doesn't have the time or the patience for it. He has a war to win," the old woman said. "That's what he has me for. Do exactly as I tell you, learn your lessons well, and we shall never find an opportunity to find out if your mind is easily broken. Cross me, and I will turn you into an example of what the Force can do to a body, and we'll see if he still wants to bed you when I'm through."


	2. Part I Chapter 2

**Part I**  
**Chapter 2**

"She has fallen," Master Vandar said, his small green head bowing in sadness.

"Without her Battle Meditation, we are lost," Master Atris replied, the holo of her form glancing around the Council chambers with a decidedly grim air.

"She was always at risk," Master Vrook said, looking at no one in particular. "Too headstrong and unwilling to listen to reason, easily swayed by her emotions. If it weren't for her skill at Battle Meditation, we would never have sent her in such close proximity to Revan in the first place."

"The question isn't what we should have done," Master Tiktaalik said. "It is what we can do now."

All heads in the room, present and holographic alike, swiveled towards Vandar, but it was Kavar who spoke. "We do what we should have done to begin with. We bring in the one person who understands Revan better than we do, the woman who has understood him since they were children together."

"Absolutely not!" Atris shrieked. "All we do then is swell Revan's ranks!"

"She had a chance to join with Revan from the outset, and she refused!" Master Lonna Vash reminded her. "Need I remind you that she was the only one who came back for judgment?"

"She only returned because she had lost her connection to the Force!" Atris snapped.

"And we all know why," Zez Kai-Ell said in his slow, soothing voice. "It was something we should have told her then, but you had your way, for all the good it did."

"There were other reasons," Vrook said. All heads turned to him, but it seemed that was all he planned to say on the matter.

"Enough," Vandar said, stopping the argument before it continued any further. "What has been done to the Exile in the past is no longer the issue. It is her future that we must consider now. It is true that she has known Revan longer and far better than any save Malak himself could ever hope to. If we truly wish to save this Galaxy, it is to her that we must turn now."

"Then let us send for her," Atris said, her tone resigned. "I know that she has sought refuge on Morellia. Let us retrieve her there and be done with it."

A general chorus of assent echoed through the chamber, and Atris volunteered to contact a Republic liaison above Telos with the information.

* * *

Deep in the heart of the Unknown Regions, Malak stewed in resentment. Shunted off like a recalcitrant child, overseeing production of the vast fleet of ships with nothing better to do than polish his newly-acquired metal jawpiece, the apprentice to the Dark Lord of the Sith was bored. And impatient. He rubbed the metal of his new jaw, missing the feeling of skin. He should have known that Revan wouldn't have let him off with nothing more than a metaphorical slap on the wrist – more like a lightsaber swipe to the jaw. Traya, that bitch, had laughed and encouraged him the whole time.

But now that he was in charge of the fleet and the recruiting, he would be able to plan things more efficiently. Revan would be busy with his new plaything, leaving Malak free to plot a better attack on him this time, making sure there was nowhere for his old Master to run. This time, Malak wanted no room for mistakes.

* * *

"Onasi here," he said, rubbing his face wearily with his hand. He'd woken up to the sound of his communicator blaring at him, and his wife had prodded him in the back until he'd answered it. He smiled down at her as he waited for whoever had called him – and it better be important – to respond.

"Carth, this is Admiral Dodonna." The voice was crisp, feminine and authoritative. He snapped to attention without realizing it. "There's a mission that requires the utmost delicacy, and Saul said you were the man for the job. I know you're on a special leave at the moment, but since you can stay planetside while you do it, I thought you might be interested."

"Admiral, anything I can do for the Republic is yours but to ask," he answered. Morgana shot him a glare.

"Saul is sending the Harbinger to Morellia to pick up a priority passenger. I'm sending her data to you, but she's a former Jedi – they call her The Exile. They're bringing her to Telos. It seems they have some secret base there under the ice caps. They think she can help in this war, and she's become a top priority for all of us. I want you to shuttle back and forth between the base and the fleet, making sure that any secure data about her doesn't fall into the wrong hands. It's vital that no one know she's coming. The Sith will be gunning for her – hard. It's why they aren't sending any Jedi after her."

"Do you think there's a leak on board the Leviathan, sir?" he asked, cautiously. He'd suspected as much for some time, but he was cautious enough not to tell a commanding officer that.

"We aren't taking any chances," she said, and Carth knew that was as close to a yes as he would get. He understood the trust that both she and Saul were putting in him with this mission. "You're welcome to stay with your family during the mission, but once the Jedi arrives, you'll be part of her escort to Dantooine. After that, you'll regroup with Saul on the Leviathan."

"Understood, sir," he said. Morgana rubbed lazy circles on his back and he smiled at her in the dimness of their bedroom.

"Take a look at the file before you go up to the base they have tomorrow morning, Commander," she said. "And get some sleep. You'll be busy the next few days."

"Yes, sir," he said. "Onasi out."

The communicator clicked off. He padded softly on bare feet to the wall unit and clicked on the screen, ignoring Morgana's annoyed sigh. When the file opened, he laughed. "I'll be damned," he said softly. His wife came up behind him.

"You know her," she said. There was no question, and he saw his wife absorb the features of the other woman. "You fought with her in the War, didn't you?"

"She was a General then," he said. "Way above my pay grade, Morgan." He laughed. "But she was coming home on the same ship I was – she seemed lost. Makes sense now, if she was coming back to be tried and facing exile from the Jedi for fighting in the War. I've heard some stories from the Jedi on the ship now about her. They call her The Exile, but I never realized it was the same woman."

"You sound sad," she said, dropping a kiss on his bare shoulder as she read the file over his shoulder. "You didn't know her that well."

"No, but the stories they tell are pretty depressing," he admitted. "Makes me glad I'm not a Jedi."

"She's really lovely," Morgana said as he clicked off the screen and lead her back to their bed. She settled against his chest. "Tell me about her. The name they give her – The Exile – it sounds like a lonely life. What was she like?"

"Now you sound sad," he teased, sitting against the headboard and pulling her against his shoulder. He told her about the lost Jedi he'd met on his way home from the War, how he'd told her stories about his wife and son back home on Telos, and how sad she'd looked at not having a family of her own. Morgana smiled at that.

"What do they say about her?" she asked, yawning a bit as she snuggled closer.

"They say that when she returned, the Council stripped her of the Force in punishment for daring to go to war against their orders. That she knew that would be the consequences, but she went anyway because she thought it was the right thing to do. Some Jedi say she fell to the Dark Side and that was why she was stripped of the Force and sent into exile. But I met her, Morgan. If that was a Dark Jedi, then we're doomed. That was one of the nicest people I've ever met. I'd trust her with your life – I'd trust her with Dustil's life. And you know I don't put that in a lot of people's hands."

"You really admire her," Morgana said, and there was something wistful in her voice.

"I've always admired those who do what is right, no matter the personal cost," he said. "And I will always respect those who stand up for those weaker than they are. The Jedi who didn't fight? The Jedi who turned their backs when the Republic needed them? Those are the ones I can't respect. And the ones who turned to the Dark Side with Revan? I can't forgive them."

Morgana tightened her grip on her husband and he smiled into her hair. Her eyes closed and she knew he thought she was sleeping, but as she lay there, she allowed herself just a moment to feel envy. In truth, she had never, once, wanted to go to war, the way he had. There were other soldiers in her class that had come home and become mothers after Malachor, and she could see how much they itched to be back out there now that Revan had turned on them. She could see how much they wanted to fight again, and how their loyalty was split between duty to home and duty to the Republic. She'd never suffered that. Her duty to the Republic had been to give them her husband. Someday she might have to give them her son.

Dustil's birth had been difficult; she would never have another child. Her husband treated her like she was a delicate piece of machinery after that, always careful. She didn't mind, really. She liked being home, with her gardens and her little family. But she envied the respect he had in his voice for this unknown woman. It wasn't the first time. He spoke of Saul like a father; given how fractious his relationship with his own father had been, he'd needed that. He admired Admiral Dodonna, naturally; she was a high-ranking superior who had years of battle experience. There had been others, male and female, that he'd spoken of with high regard and esteem, but very few that he'd truly seemed fond of. It was strange that he'd formed such a close bond with the woman in such a short time. She smiled. Others would suspect their husbands of carrying on illicitly, but Morgana knew Carth simply wasn't that way. He wore his loyalty like a badge of honor. If he'd so much as looked at another woman in the wrong way, he'd have beaten himself up over it for months, and she'd have known about it immediately; it was just who he was.

Her brave, stalwart soldier. She would miss him when he had to leave again, but she understood why he had to do it. Dustil, on the other hand, was being difficult again. He didn't understand that as much as his father wanted to be home with them, he couldn't be. And Carth was never home long enough to see how delicate and weak she truly was, so he didn't understand their son's resentment.

His soft snores broke into her thoughts. "Forgive him, my love," she whispered. "Someday soon, you will understand each other. When I am gone and he's grown into manhood, and left his childish ideas behind."

She slipped out of his arms and pulled on her thin white gown, wrapping a matching kimono over it and stepping out into her flower garden. The night was lit only by stars, and she wished for a moon to guide her steps. She sat on the bench she and Dustil had built while Carth had been away in the last war and looked up to the heavens, trying to spot the constellations she and Carth had teasingly named one night as they lay upon the beach when they were teenagers. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

The familiar pain came upon her, and she clenched her teeth and bore through it. "Soon," she whispered to the night.

* * *

Tana Shol knew that medical facilities on Morellia hadn't been up to Republic standards – not that she really could have afforded them, anyway. So it really wasn't a surprise to her when she got the report on her datapad that she was needed in the medbay for some routine medical treatment for some antibacterials and some boosters. She just didn't want to have to spend any time in a kolto tank. She hated those kriffing things. They always gave her the surreal feeling that she was watching the world through the watery lenses of a Selkath.

She smiled at the medical officer who was performing her treatments. "Hi, Jaq, how've you been?"

"Pretty good, though I've heard some rumors that we're changing course from Telos today," he said, looking at her as though to gauge her reaction.

"Really? Wonder why," she said, not really caring how quickly it came. The 'invitation' to reconvene with the Council on Telos hadn't come with any kind of information, but Tana figured they'd finally decided what to do with her, and it probably involved a long stay in a Force Cage. A delay in arrival could only mean good things for her.

"We-ell," Jaq said, drawing it out, as though he didn't want to tell her, when she knew he was dying to. Her many visits to medical over the past three days had given her a chance to get to know the staffer pretty well, and she knew he loved gossip. "From what I heard in the mess, seems there's a ship claiming to be attacked by some Sith vessel and Admiral Karath wants us to check it out. Could be something, could be nothing. You know how those things go."

She nodded her head wisely, though really, having spent so many years out in the back of beyond, she hadn't a clue. "So what's on my agenda for today?" she asked the man.

"Well, as much as I know you hate it, honey, we gotta put you in the tank for a little while," he said. "That cut on your leg isn't getting any better, and all the antis aren't working."

"Ah, you gotta be kriffing kidding me?" she swore. "How long?"

"Only an hour. Then you're home free. You might have to come back in a day or two for some pain meds, but that's about it."

She shook her head. Jaq really was the best of the med team they had on this ship. From what she'd heard, he'd only been transferred over right before they'd left to come get her, so she was lucky. Anyone else would have been sick of her whining already, but he was patient and understanding. It made going in the tank a little more tolerable.

After an hour of the hellish tank, Tana was finally free to return to her quarters. In truth, she was amazed that she was allowed the freedom she had now. The quarters she'd been given on the _Harbinger_ were large and comfortable, meant for high-level dignitaries; that much she remembered from her time with the Republic before her exile. News had been scarce out on Morellia, but she knew that the war effort was going poorly. She had only to look at the faces of the soldiers on the ship to see that. Too well she recalled that look of hopelessness; it haunted her dreams. It was what had driven her against the Mandalorians seven years before, and what had caused her exile two years later.

She'd spent the first year wandering aimlessly, living a sort of half-existence on various planets, doing odd jobs for credits so that she could eat and keep a roof over her head until she'd saved up enough for passage to Morellia. It was such an out-of-the-way little planet, of no real significance, with such a backward sense of technology, that she felt comfortable there. She'd worked in a small droid repair shop and lived in a tiny apartment above the shop until the day the Republic ship had come.

She'd known that someone was asking around the small town about her before the officer had even reached her shop. One of her employer's friends had slipped out of the cantina as soon as he'd seen her face on the datapad and let her know that if she wanted to run, the time was now. They hadn't questioned her on what she might have done to earn it, they'd just warned her. But she was so tired of running, really, and she knew if she left it would be only a matter of time before they tracked her down, so she'd shaken her head and waited for the officer to get her.

She'd been allowed to pack her belongings and give her thanks to her employer for all the years they'd worked together, but she knew that she wouldn't be returning. If the Jedi wanted her now, there must be some purpose.

She picked up the datapad. The officer had given it to her when they'd shown her to her room on the Harbinger, and she'd read the brief message so many times she had it memorized, but it gave her something to do besides practice old meditation techniques that no longer worked now that she wasn't able to commune with the Force.

She tossed it aside and headed for the mess. Perhaps she could find out something about those rumors that Jaq had mentioned. If they were truly going to rescue a ship from the Sith, she'd like to know about it.

Outside her door, she was stopped by a familiar-looking droid.

"QUERY: Is there anything I can get for you?" it asked.

"No, thank you," she said, staring at it. "I'm just going to get some dinner. What happened to the other droid that was on this deck?"

"INTRODUCTION: I am HK-50, protocol droid. The other unit appeared to suffer an electrical short to its chassis, rendering it useless. I was activated to serve this afternoon."

Tana nodded and walked away from the droid, feeling uncomfortably as though it were watching her as she left. She knew she'd seen a droid like that somewhere before, and the designation was oddly familiar, too, but she pushed it aside as she got in the elevator that would lead to the mess.

Once there, she sat closer than was her wont to a group of off-duty soldiers and tried to listen inconspicuously to their conversation, but they weren't talking about anything of interest to her.

The next day the droid passed her a datapad with information on another check-up for medical. By then the word was all over the ship, and even she couldn't help but know that it was true – outside her window was a gleaming Sith vessel and a much abused freighter. The freighter had clearly seen battle of some kind, but whatever had happened to it, there was surprisingly nothing going on now. In fact, everyone seemed to be rather on edge about it.

Apparently the whole ship was abandoned, save for one body in what was supposedly horrible shape. And the freighter that had put out the call was empty of human life as well. There was nothing on board but a small droid, who was apparently doing its best to repair the ship. Tana felt a prickle of unease settle over her as she walked into the medical bay and stopped uncertainly.

There it was. The body. It was ravaged in a way she'd never even begun to imagine. _How in the name of all that was holy had he managed to survive in such a state_, she wondered. The skin on the back of her neck prickled. There was no one in the medbay, which was more than a little peculiar, but she knew well enough what to do. Jaq had told her it would just be some pain meds, and maybe another anti for her leg. She pushed the datapad into the receptacle and listened to the comforting hum of the machinery.

A few moments later a medical droid armed with an injector tube came towards her and she braced herself for the sting. After the prick of pain passed, she tried to take a step, but her feet were unsteady, and she wondered when the ship had started rocking like that. Another step, and she stumbled to the ground.

_Damn, what was in those pain killers, Jaq?_ She wondered.

As she lay there on the durasteel plating, she decided that maybe she'd just stay there until Jaq was done with his lunch break. He'd help her to her quarters and she could sleep off this weird side effect. She closed her eyes and slipped away from consciousness.


	3. Part I Chapter 3

**Part I**  
**Chapter 3**

Tana woke with the feel of durasteel cold against her cheek and the lingering echo of a voice in her mind. Briefly, she wondered if she'd had too much juma the night before, but the dim memory of a medbay lingered. Her eyes refused to open, but the overwhelming stench of kolto hit her nose.

"Dammit, Jaq," she mumbled. " I thought I didn't need any more time in the tank."

She peeled her eyes open and realized immediately that she was no longer in the medbay of the _Harbinger_. Her brain did a series of rapid calculations, leaving her with an even bigger headache, and the conclusions weren't pretty: she'd been drugged, out for who knew how long, and now she was in some strange medbay – in her underwear.

"And this isn't even one of my worst days," she grumbled as she pulled herself to her feet. She looked around groggily. The full-immersion tank behind her had most likely been her home for the past several days given the way the smell of kolto seemed to have permeated her skin. The other four tanks that lined the circular room had male occupants, and Tana spared a thought for her modesty as she walked to the tank nearest her – the one on the left of 'hers'. Her modesty was safe, she decided a moment later with a small, mental recoil. She did a quick examination of the other three tanks.

All four men had sustained injuries, it was clear, but nothing that a full-immersion tank wouldn't have healed; all four were dead. She shook her head as though to clear it. It just didn't add up and that fueled her determination to find a way out of this medbay. She had the slightly claustrauphobic feeling that let her know she was underground, and she'd never been comfortable being buried alive like this. It didn't matter how much "fresh" air they pumped into places like these; it wasn't the same as an open plain like the one on Dantooine where she'd grown up.

She did a quick rewire of the door and let herself out of the room after a thorough search for clothing, of which there was none. A sealed room on the right resisted all attempts to hack it, but the one on the left opened easily enough and with a quick security bypass, she was able to view the holorecords of the medical officer's security log, learning a little about the strange place where she'd woken, a mining facility she was quickly coming to realize was likely a ghost town. The most useful thing she learned, besides what had happened to those around her, was that all those in the tanks, herself included, had been poisoned with sedatives.

Tana refused to dwell on why she'd survived that. That was a path she would not walk again, no matter what the circumstances surrounding it, and while it was certainly odd that such things seemed to be coming back to her now, when she needed them most, it was no more or less than a rare fluke of the luck she'd been famous for on Morellia. That was it.

What was important was that someone had tried to kill her. Someone had drugged her, brought her here, and tried to kill her, and the most likely suspect was someone she would never have thought, however many days it had been, would be the culprit. Jaq, whatever his motives, was not looking too good right now, despite all his friendliness. Too late, Tana remembered that the best way for an assassin to move in on a target was to get to know the target as intimately as possible. Even thinking about his likely betrayal hurt, on a level she wasn't comfortable with. In the short time she'd known him, she'd grown very fond of the youthful medical officer, and even having to suspect that he'd played some part in her situation on this facility was painful.

She brushed it aside, and used the console in the medical room to open the sealed door and walked across the hallway. She felt her stomach churn with long-buried memories as she realized she was in the morgue. "Stupid," she muttered. There must have been a sign over the damn door. If worse came to it, she could take the clothes from the old woman laying on the nearest slab, but the shreds of her training rebelled against it. Instead she went to the far end of the room, where a man was lying, as though asleep, and she rifled through his clothes, looking for some sort of weapon. She found some sort of mining tool that could probably be used with some effectiveness and was preparing to leave when she heard a voice.

"Find what you're looking for amongst the dead?"

It was the voice she'd heard echoing in her brain as she'd woken, and she turned to find the old woman had gotten up. She stared in shock for a moment.

"So, you're alive after all. I thought you were dead, old woman. You gave me a start."

"Close to death, yes. Closer than I'd like. You have the smell of the kolto tank about you – how do you feel?" the old woman asked. Tana stared at her suspiciously. This was an awfully genial conversation for a morgue.

"Of course I smell of the damn tank, I spent Force only knows how long in there," Tana said hotly. "And I'm a little woozy. I imagine that's normal. Was it your voice then, that I heard earlier – there's something niggling the back of my mind, like I've heard your voice before."

The old woman babbled on to her, and Tana tried to show her some respect. If she was right, this woman, Kreia, she called herself, had woken Tana from the drug-induced sleep she'd been in…and Tana was afraid she knew how the old woman had done it. Eventually they agreed that Kreia would wait in the morgue and Tana would explore the station. Tana tried very hard not to blow up at the woman when she called her a Jedi. She wasn't – not anymore – not for a long time.

When Tana left the old woman to recover her strength, while she searched for a way off the facility, the old woman left her with the parting shot about finding clothes, it was all she could do not to hit her with her newly acquired weapon. But the old woman was right. They HAD been attacked once, and would likely be attacked again. Getting out of there was a top priority. And the woman had seemed honest when she'd claimed she didn't know who had tried to kill her. Which still left Jaq as her primary suspect.

Tana dashed a few unwelcome tears from her eyes. Her first friend since reentering Republic space and she'd already been betrayed. It did not bode well for her future among the Republic. She continued to explore the abandoned station, fighting off droids when she came upon them and trying to learn as much as she could. It seemed, as far as she could tell, that the droids had revolted and so had a decent portion of the miners – right after she'd been brought in on a derelict freighter. And they, like the old woman (hag, her mind whispered) believed her to be a Jedi.

But why now? Why after all these years of being left alone, to fend for herself, was there suddenly so much interest in her as a Jedi, when she hadn't truly been a Jedi in more years than she cared to admit? As she prepared to enter another section of the station, she felt it: the voice of the old woman (hag) in her head, and the first faint stirrings of something she'd thought she'd lost forever on a long ago day on a faraway world. Something she wasn't even sure she welcomed back at all, but there it was, all the same, on the edges of her perception, a faint stir in the Force.

All the power in the Galaxy at her fingertips once again, weak though it may be, and she was tempted to slam that door shut, to stop it from coming through. Something about that thought triggered some other thought in the back of her mind, something important, but it was out of reach and slipped away as she tried to grasp it.

Then the fight had begun and there was nothing but her and the Force, fighting off the droids, and by all the saints of Tython, she'd missed this! She moved through the next few chambers, slightly drunk on the power coursing through her body and terrified of it all the same.

And then, she found Jaq.


End file.
